Ding Junhui has won the Shanghai Masters by 10-6 over world No.1, Mark Selby.
On his home turf of China, Ding has always found it difficult to perform on the big stage in front of millions of his own people, but today he withstood the pressure and shone at one of the biggest events on the snooker calendar. This is the second time Ding has won this event, making him the only player in history to win the Shanghai Masters twice.
In the first session it was Mark Selby who got off to a good start by taking the first frame but Ding leveled up by making a break of 115. In the next two frames, Selby was dominant and took the frames well, making a 115 in the fourth to go 3-1 up.
But it all went Ding’s way in the next five frames as he dominated the table and made breaks of 53, 59, 52 and 75 to go into the interval leading 6-3.
After the interval though, Selby came back at Ding by taking the next three frames to level up with impressive breaks of 76, 102 and 53.
This sparked Ding into action once again as he took the next three frames with breaks of 97, 52 and 63 to go three frames in front again and lead 9-6 with Ding only needing one more frame to win.
In the final frame, both Ding and Selby looked under tremendous pressure as both players were missing easy balls, but it was Ding who was most determined and he did enough to make Mark Selby needing snookers. Although Selby played on for snookers (and nearly got them), it was ultimately Ding who won the frame and the match by 10-6.
After the match at the ceremony, Ding could hardly talk as he was so emotional about winning and his father ended up doing most of the talking.
